“No Better Witnesses than Your Own Eyes”

It was Monday early in the morning; I was walking to my ofice facing the challenging cold and rainy weather, to be there early. Suddenly, I saw an old man walking very fast pulling a child. He was almost covered with old traditional shawl the so called Gabie in Amhara Region where as the child was dressed a very old pant and a torned out t-shirt which can’t save from the cold.

The child was in a big challenge to walk the same to the old man due to the sharp stones which covered the street and suffered him scratching his unshoed foot. After walking a while, the old man started pulling the child more seriously and being negligees. At this time, I couldn’t look being silent, so, I called the old man to stop and talk to me in dealing about the child.
When I got close to them, “I am bringing him to the hospital…for HIV/AIDS…treatment as well as to collect ... ART medicine as usual”, the old man said. When I saw the child’s eyes, I shook. The child was blind: his right eye was not in place where as the left one was extremely injured due to chronicle infection.

While trying to control my feeling, I said to the old man: “what happened to his eyes?” Pointing at the right blind eye of the child, the old man said: “It was very injured, so that a doctor found in Bahir Dar Felege Hiwote Hospital has removed it to stop the progression of the infection to his brain. I don’t know why, the other one is also become like this - very sick, this is why we are going to the hospital early in the morning”. He continued explaining what happened to the child with some introduction, “his name is Tesema; he is the son of my brother. He got HIV from his parents…they died of HIV/AIDS”.
When I realized that they were fully wet due to the rain, “where are you coming from?”, I said. “We are coming on foot from a rural area which is about 25KM far from the city - Bahir Dar, the old man said.” “What !” I said emotionally, because it is risky to travel this much distance for the child like Tesema suffering from serious chronicle infection.

“We often come to the hospital on foot travelling for more than 3 hours”, the old man said again to make me sure of what he has said. Tesema was very late to come to the hospital; he had to get opportunistic infection treatment before. I disappointed with the way the old man handle Tesema, but I couldn’t complain him, because I know very well both the economical and awareness problem of Ethiopians.
I breathed in depth and started looking at Tesema, who was almost naked. After a while, “have you tried to get support from GOs or NGOs?” I said. “I only received 3,000 birr from…” the old man said and started straggling to remember the name of the organization which has provided the money. Instead of waiting until he recover the name in his old mind, I continued asking: “What
have you used the money for, why didn’t you buy shoes and clothes for Tesema?”

The old man laughed, but ironically, may be in the sense to say you don’t know my problem. Then being silent for a while looking at the ground, he said: “I used for daily subsidise. It helped me to buy different commodities”. He continued explaining why he didn’t buy shoes for Tesema: “shoe is not common in rural areas; even all of my children don’t have shoes. And also I am very poor farmer, there are a lot of things which should be prioritized in my family instead of shoes and
clothe.”
“What kind of food are you providing him” I said to the old man although I understood what he would say. “Nothing special I give him, I provide him with the food that is accessible at home, commonly Shiro with Enger, he said”.

I started imagining the life of Tesema, and I found it more than painful. HIV/AIDS made him lost a lot: beyond losing both his parents, he received HIV from them and loses both his eyes due to chronicle infection. He was also suffering due lack of good care and support. What happened to Tesema forced me to look behind the positive results of the HIV/AIDS prevention and controlee program. I started pointing out the gaps of the programme in the case of Tesema. First, I said to myself, it couldn’t address his parents with effective HIV/AIDS prevention education, as a result he lose his parents with HIV/AIDS. Second, it couldn’t provide his parents with PMTCT service, as a result he contacted HIV. Third, even it couldn’t provide him with proper care and support with opportunistic infection treatment, as a result he lose his both eyes, and was in torturing life.

I couldn’t stop myself from its internal dialogue, rather a question came to my mind for endless discourse - how is the life of other children living with HIV? Because, what happened to Tesema had a basic message regarding others.
While I was in this situation, the slow sound of the old man brought me out of my question. “We have to go” he said. I don’t know why but I scared, may be due to my inability to do something better for Tesema than just giving advice for his ‘care giver’ on how to handle him. After shaking my hand with his both hands, and offering me thanks, the old man started moving forward, the child also continued walking over the sharp stones.

Story by - Haileyesuse Tsehay
Written by - Betre Yacob
CVM Amhara Regional Project IEC Department